Tycho by Lauren_Crew
There’s a deliberate calm to Scott Hansen’s music as it dives and breaches like a digital submarine through oceans of IDM, chillwave, ambient, electrogaze and downtempo, piloted by someone who also understands rock ’n’ roll. The calming effect is symmetric — organic and digital, lofty and lo-fi, rich and accessible. Wonderful and perfectly balanced. Hansen’s is a space of ethereal harmony that never turns toxic or cloying.
Hansen can do this because he, too, is in perfect balance — musically as Tycho and visually as ISO50. Tycho, an experimental ambient project that he began in his 20’s, has grown and matured alongside his work as a visual artist under the name ISO50; a charted evolution that is evidenced by the albums he has created and the ephemera of their physical releases. He’s one of the most exciting electronic musicians working today and his music, though it continues to venture along experimental avenues, grows ever more focused.
His debut album — “Sunrise Projector,” released in 2004, re-released in 2006 and reissued in 2010 as “Past Is Prologue” — was telling of where he’d go and how his mind tinkers. Strengthening the original with fresh tracks was a deft way of living up to the lofty (but linguistically similar) new title for a revisited album.
This kind of balance would be fine-tuned through a series of singles and EPs in the interim years before 2011’s “Dive,” a solid sophomore effort that garnered positive reviews and has grown to be more appreciated over time. Built almost exclusively on a Minimoog, “Dive” is as much an aural vacation as it is a lush tapestry from which you can zoom in on points of interest.
Productivity and creativity erupted in unison from then on, with Hansen’s output shining in 2014’s follow-up “Awake” and concluding this trilogy cycle in 2016 with “Epoch,” which was nominated for a Best Dance/Electronic Album Grammy. As a triptych, it is the corporis maximi laboris at this stage in his development. Wherever Hansen, now in his early 40s, turns next, it’s safe to say it will be somewhere wonderful and perfectly balanced.
Tycho, with Poolside, March 1 at The Fillmore Miami Beach at the Jackie Gleason Theater fillmoremb.com ~ Abel Folgar
